Comparing Setting In Glaspell's The Necklace And A & P
878 Words4 Pages
The setting of a story is one of its most important elements. It significantly influences factors such as the character’s mindset, beliefs, and ideas. It creates an overall clearer picture and insight. Moreover, without knowledge of the setting it becomes increasingly more difficult to understand and relate to the events, ideas, and characters of a story. In the following stories, “A&P” by John Updike, “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, and “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, the correlation between the settings and the themes or ideas presented is substantially conveyed. Sammy, the protagonist in “A&P”, goes against the norms of his time period by defending three girls who enter the grocery store where he is employed only wearing…show more content… During the time the story was set in, women exposing more skin than deemed necessary was controversial. The girls wearing only swimming suits was seen as indecent and created a strong reaction from what Sammy referred to as “the sheep pushing their carts down the aisle (5)”. Sammy believes that he knows what the customers and girls lives are like based on their appearances and is quick to judge. He called them sheep because of how they conformed to the expectations set by that time period without giving it a second thought. He enjoyed watching how the girls affected them and made them uncomfortable. He notices that “few house-slaves in pin curlers even looked around after pushing their carts past to make sure what they had seen was correct.…show more content… Mrs. Wright, the character accused of the murder, was very isolated from the rest of the world. Mrs. Hale, a part of the “jury”, stated that “it had always been a lonesome-looking place (2)”. She goes on to regret never having visited Mrs. Wright in all the time they lived by each other. Mrs. Wright’s loss of sanity becomes apparent after the women continually find unfinished projects throughout her house. Furthermore, after being taken from her house after the body was discovered she cared more about her fruit preserves than the severity of the murder’s